


Age of Kings

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ardyn sleeps with the entire line of Lucis ok, M/M, Not the ENTIRE line but close
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 03:24:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10069007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: A fill for thekinkmeme!Endgame spoilers ahoy!The premise of this is centered on one of the biggest spoilers in the game (regarding Ardyn), so this will be vague:This is a look at who Ardyn could have been under different circumstances. There's eventual Ardyn/Noct, a fair amount of melancholy, and some hope, too, here and there.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt: "In another world Ardyn Lucis Caelum, The Accursed, was not decried and excluded from Lucis' history, left to spend 2000 years waiting for death in bitter obscurity. Instead he has walked beside the kings of Lucis, honored by the people as the height of loyal service to the kingdom. His relationship with the kings has been variable over the years, but Regis, Aulea, and Noctis are without a doubt his favorites. Which makes his destiny as willing human sacrifice devastating as it is relieving."

Ardyn Lucis Caelum stood before the last of his brother’s descendants, squinting down at him in thoughtful silence.

“Ugly little thing,” he said, at last.

The boy’s father, King Regis, knit his brows in mild disapproval. His frown only deepened at Ardyn's sideways smile.

“Regis,” he said, in a voice as smooth as silk. “A protective father already? Don’t fret, all infants look like this. Even _you_ did, back in the day. There’s hope for the boy.”

Noctis Lucis Caelum chose this moment to break into an ear-splitting scream, thrashing in his father’s arms. Ardyn stepped back, hands raised, as an efficient nurse swept the infant out of King Regis' hold. The King almost started after her, and only stopped when he caught the smirk on Ardyn’s face.

“You have plenty of time to be his father,” Ardyn assured him, which they both knew was a lie. Their gazes followed the path of the infant prince; Regis with the faintest twinge of fear, Ardyn with expectation.

It had been so long.

So long since Ardyn, exultant with triumph and the knowledge that he would be the end of Ifrit’s Scourge upon humanity, had taken the very Scourge into his flesh. So long since the daemons he’d absorbed in his quest to obey the Astrals began to eat away at his mind and soul. So long since the Astrals saw this, since the best of them, the kindest of them, nearly drained her powers in a last desperate bid to keep Ardyn from falling prey to the very evil he sought to destroy. She had given him the strength to fight, but the Scourge had changed him. Ardyn would not die, could not die, until the power of Bahamut’s crystal and the collective force of the Lucian line put him to rest at last.

The result of that line, the one who would take that power unto himself and give his life to end the Scourge, lay wailing in the nurse’s arms.

Ardyn looked sidelong at the young king beside him. Ardyn had been hailed as the immortal savior of Lucis, he who would bear the worst of the Scourge so that the world would not be engulfed by it. He’d known many kings, many queens, in his life, and only now did he wish that Regis could have been born in a different time. Some earlier century, when the end of it all did not loom so large in his mind.

There was a sharp noise behind them, a door slamming open. Regis startled. Ardyn turned slowly, already preparing himself for what was to come. He could smell the blood in the birthing room, the sick, the faint sting of death that pulled at the daemonic influences within him.

The nurse standing in the doorway was pale and stricken, and turned to the kings of Lucis with a tight-lipped stare.

“It’s the Queen,” he said.

 

\---

 

Even modern medicine could not prevent all ills in this world. Ardyn waited at the door, listening to the half-broken voice of young Regis, the answering whisper of his queen. Aulea. Wonderful, terrible Aulea.

_Damn._

Ardyn stepped back when the door opened, and caught Regis by the arms.

“Ardyn,” Regis said, in a voice that cracked like a child’s. “You’ve healed in the past. I know you have. There are records, transcripts—“

He faltered at the look on the immortal’s face.

“I _am_ sorry, Regis. The Scourge has all but devoured that power. All I can do now is ease the pain.”

Regis looked up at him, unaware of the way his nails dug into the cloth of Ardyn’s official robes. “Will you?”

Ardyn sighed. “For you, my dear, I will try.”

 

\---

 

When Ardyn sat down at Aulea’s bedside, the Queen tilted her head, gesturing for him to move closer.

“How’s Regis, old man?” she asked.

“Terrible,” Ardyn said. “But he’ll survive.” They always did. “Be still. I will—“

“I know what you want to do,” said the Queen. Her dark hair stuck to her damp cheeks, curling with the sweat of her fever. She lifted a hand, and Ardyn leaned down to let her press her fingers to his hair. “Don’t. I’m not afraid of this.”

“You are a remarkable woman,” Ardyn said, “and the world should tremble before you. But I have my orders.”

“Ardyn.” Aulea ran her hand through his hair, picking out tangles. “You’ll lose yourself.”

“That’s half the fun, my sweet,” he said. Aulea groaned in mock frustration, and her hand slipped around to cover Ardyn’s mouth. He smiled into her palm.

“I _will_ miss _you,_ ” he said, lifting her hand away. “The court was so dull before you came along.”

Aulea’s eyes were already losing focus, awash in pain. “You say that to all the pretty girls.”

“Oh no,” Ardyn assured her. “You’re hardly a beauty.” He was rewarded with a laugh, weak and strained, and he thought of her as she used to be: A gangly, awkward young woman with a too-wide grin and a tendency to lose her shoes in the garden.

She was a sacrilegious, uncouth, anti-authoritarian monster wrapped in silk dresses that did her no favors, and Ardyn adored her to distraction. He used to swap hats with her when they sat in official meetings, traded scandals that had yet to happen, and while Regis only smiled at Ardyn’s thinly-veiled sarcasm, Aulea would urge him to new heights. Once, purely on a whim, the two of them talked an envoy from Niflheim into handing over the territory rights to Galahd for a pittance. Aulea had laughed so hard she cried, and when the night drew to a close, she pulled Ardyn into the corner of a balcony, let him hitch her skirts up to her thighs, and had learned exactly to what purpose Ardyn could put his clever tongue. She could have been his undoing two thousand years ago, when he was young and prone to lending himself to his desires. She was everything a Queen should not be, and he knew that she would be the best of all of them. 

And oh, they both _did_ love Regis. Soft-hearted, dedicated Regis. He was the kind of king that poets spoke of, the glorified image that history books portrayed the old kings to be. Ardyn wondered if this selfish desire to hold onto both of them, to claim the last true monarchs of Lucis, was rooted in the Scourge that roiled under his skin. Perhaps not. Perhaps it was just chance, a striking misfortune that Ardyn should find these precious, imperfect souls only now.

“Look to my boy,” Aulea said, as Ardyn sat at her bedside. “If he _is_ the one to end this—“

“He is,” Ardyn said. The Queen sighed.

“Then give him a life, before it’s done.” Her gaze quested for his face, and settled just above his shoulder.

“Of course,” said Ardyn, and called forth the hidden scraps of his ancient power, dragging them through what felt like a void of fire and seething fury. It settled into the Queen gently, and Ardyn watched and waited, patient as stone, until the last of her life had left her. Only then did he succumb to the roar in his mind, the darkness that threatened to seep through the very pores of his flesh.

 

\---

 

Regis brought Noctis to him when he woke—Now three months old, the young prince was only just learning how to laugh, and he looked much like his mother and father by turns. Ardyn took to stealing him away from the nursemaids while Regis threw himself into the running of the kingdom, and would walk him through the palace, mocking the old kings and queens whose portraits hung on the long walls.

“That’s King Joreth,” he’d say, as the prince gurgled in his arms. “Not as attractive as the painting would have you believe, but he did have a fondness for libraries. And look! Your great-great-great grandmother, Perenia the Bloody. You’re too young for that story. You’ll enjoy it much more in a few years.”

Once, he even showed the child the empty space that lay beyond King Regis’ portrait. “One day,” he said, “after you’ve killed me, someone might put _your_ portrait here.”

Noctis only screwed his face up and made a wet squeaking sound.

“Yes,” Ardyn admitted. “I suppose that was in poor taste. Let’s see if we can set you loose in the Council hall. Would you like that, Noctis? _I_ certainly would.”

Noctis screeched in what Ardyn could only assume was fervent agreement, and Ardyn whirled him away from the long gallery, his fashionable boots clicking smartly on the cold stone floors.


	2. Chapter 2

“Noctis, we shouldn’t be here.”

“Don’t be a _tool,_ Iggy.”

Ignis Scientia, age seven, stared down at the boy who would one day be his king. Noctis was small for his age, with a round face, narrow chin, and startling blue eyes, and the black clothes of the royal family made him look thin and pale. Anyone who didn’t spend more than a minute with him would think the prince weak, even sickly. Ignis knew better. Keeping up with Noct was a full-time job, and he wasn’t even being paid yet.

“Do you know what tool _means?_ ” Ignis asked. Noct shrugged and shushed him, then slowly inched forward. The two of them were crouched under a pew in a shrine to the Astrals, a mere four yards away from the large altar where the priests gave their rites. Flower garlands draped over the rafters, petals littered the plush rugs on the floor, and pillows of herbs sat at the end of every pew. Before the altar, the most terrifying men Ignis had ever seen stood with their hands behind their backs, looking up at a portrait on the wall.

“It’s a terrible likeness,” said Ardyn Lucis Caelum, the fabled hero of ancient Lucis. Ignis tried not to shiver. No matter how many times he met the man, he always felt like his nerves were on fire. Talking to a king he could handle. Talking to a living legend? He was lucky if he could get a word in without stammering. And yet Noct seemed entirely unaffected.

The man next to Ardyn smiled. King Regis’ greying hair was bright in the light of the shrine, and he stood close to Ardyn, their shoulders touching. “You could always correct them,” he said. Ardyn tutted.

“No, let’s not ruin the illusion. Bahamut in the flesh is _not_ a pleasant sight for a yearly visit to the temple.” He lifted a hand, brushing the image of the greatest of the Astrals. “I do hope they don’t ask me to _speak_ at this festival.”

“They always do, and you always cause an incident,” said Regis.

“You wound me. There was that one time, about four hundred years ago, when I—“

“What a shame that I could not be there to see it.”

Ardyn looked at the king strangely, then. “True,” he said. His voice sounded almost sad. Ignis wondered at this, but then he saw Noct ducking into another pew, and had to hurry after him. He finally grabbed the younger boy by the ankle, dragging him further into hiding, and wrapped an arm around Noct’s shoulder to keep him there.

“Have you seen Noctis lately?” the immortal legend asked, and Ignis and Noct both looked up sharply. The king and Ardyn were standing very close, now, but the king looked as unhappy as Ardyn had a moment before.

“It’s been hard to find the time,” he said.

“Nonsense,” said Ardyn. He touched the king’s cheek, and ran his fingers down the other man’s jaw. “You’re terrified. I can _taste_ it on you.” King Regis shivered, and Ignis clapped both hands over his mouth when the two men closed the distance between them, the king leaning up into Ardyn’s touch as though he could collapse at any moment. They kissed deep and hard and hungrily, and King Regis made a noise that _definitely_ wasn’t proper. Ignis wasn’t sure he could look either of them in the face again.

“Ardyn,” the king said, at last. Ignis refused to look. “The altar? _Really?_ ”

“Oh, the Astrals won’t mind.”

“I don’t have your _particular_ talent for sacrilege, I’m afraid.”

“Very well.” There was a sound of shuffling feet, and Ignis risked a peek through his fingers to see both men standing before each other, Ardyn briskly adjusting the king’s jacket and cloak. Thank the Six.

“We do need to talk about Noctis,” Ardyn said. King Regis frowned. “He’s a child, sweet. Not a sacrificial lamb you can put aside until the promised day. Aulea would not—“

“Don’t.” The king’s voice was cold, hard. Ardyn sighed.

“Very well. Go. Be king,” he said. “It comes so easily to you, after all.”

King Regis made a displeased noise, like a mix between a sigh and a growl, and turned on his heels. Ardyn stood in silence until Ignis heard the back door close, and then looked up at the painting of the Astrals.

“Sometimes,” he said, in a quiet voice, “I wonder if the lot of you aren’t all unmitigated bastards.”

Noct suppressed a gasp at Ignis’ side, and the ancient king stiffened. He turned, scanning the pews, and set his gaze directly on the spot where Ignis and Noct lay on their bellies, frozen in fear.

Ardyn stepped down from the dais and started walking towards them.

“Prince Noctis,” he said, in a low rumble. “Do you know what happens to naughty boys?”

Noct squeaked.

“ _Naughty boys_ get eaten by _daemons,_ ” Ardyn said. Noct turned to Ignis.

“Run!” The prince leapt to his feet with a whoop, and raced down the aisle towards the exit. Ignis tried to follow after him, but a large, firm hand swept him up, and he found himself being draped over Ardyn Lucis Caelum’s broad shoulder. Noct was slung into the crook of Ardyn’s right arm, and the two boys dangled like dejected cubs in his hold as they were marched out of the shrine and into the open air.

“We aren’t _really_ going to be eaten, are we?” Ignis whispered to Noct. He ignored Ardyn’s soft laughter. The prince scowled.

“Worse,” he said. “He’s gonna take us to Gladdy’s dad, and we’re gonna run _laps._ ”

Ignis balked. Mr. Amicitia was almost as formidable as the king. But there was nothing to be done. He sighed, covering his face with both hands, and let the hero of his fairytale books lug him through the Citadel like a sack of flour.

 

\---

 

“I’m _bored._ ”

Ardyn looked down on the young prince at his side, and raised one eyebrow.

“Congratulations, Noctis,” he said. The prince glared at him suspiciously. “I must say, I am impressed. Here you are, all of eight years old, and you’ve learned everything there is to know about the world.”

“That’s not what I _mean,_ Ardyn.” Noct kicked his new, glossy shoes against the back of the chaise lounge on which they sat, watching party-goers flit by in elegant suits and fine robes. “I mean I’m bored.”

Noct’s gaze flitted to king Regis, who stood in a circle of older statesmen. _Ah,_ Ardyn thought. _Of course._ He lay a hand on the prince’s shoulder and pulled him into a one-armed embrace, mussing his carefully combed hair. Noct giggled half-heartedly and batted his hand away.

Ardyn watched the crowd, searching for something that might interest the boy. The war between Niflheim and Lucis was still ongoing, mostly through skirmishes and the occasional firefight, as Niflheim’s army consisted of volunteers and Lucis’ military depended on the strength of the king. And the king, Ardyn knew, was too busy maintaining the old wall that protected Insomnia and the city’s outlying territories. The two governments were both too proud to admit to a stalemate, and as such, it seemed as though failed sanctions and painfully dull official dinners would be plentiful in Noctis’ near future.

Ardyn took off his silk hat and shoved it unceremoniously onto Noct’s head, where it slipped over his eyes. “I have an idea,” he said, in a quiet voice. The prince tilted the hat up and looked at him eagerly.

“Tell me, Noctis,” he whispered. “Do you know what a _diplomatic incident_ is?” Noct shook his head, and Ardyn smiled. “Do you want to find out?”

Thirty minutes later, Noctis raced up to the head researcher of Niflheim’s military bioengineering department, rocking on his toes with all the excitement of a boy who should have been in bed hours ago.

“Mr. Besithia!” he called. The man stared down at him, and blinked owlishly. “Hi. I’m Noctis.” He extended a hand, and the older man took it gingerly, letting go as quickly as he was able. “I wanted to say I’m really sorry, Mr. Besithia.”

“Sorry?” The researcher’s voice was a heavy croak. “For what, your highness?”

“For…” Noct looked suddenly unsure. “I… I thought you knew.” The man stared at him openly now, eyes narrowed. “I heard from one of the men in the weird white suits that you were getting looked at.”

“Looked at?”

“Yeah. Like, they said it was an… Audon? Audit? Audit, yeah! They said your successor, I think, that he’s gonna need to know what you’ve been up to. Because you might have… um... What does foreign sympathies mean?”

Besithia’s face went so pale so quickly that Noctis had to hide a grin. “Where did you hear this, young man?”

Noct adjusted the hat that threatened to sink down his forehead. “Um. Somewhere over there,” he said, pointing to a group of Niflheim officials. “I’m bad at names. Sorry.”

“No, no,” the older man said, sounding distant. “Thank you, your highness. If you don’t mind, I must—“ He left without even a bow, striding towards the faraway group of diplomats like a tiger going in for the kill. Noct watched him go, and then bounded over to Ardyn.

“How’d I do?” he asked. They both looked up at the sound of raised voices, and saw Mr. Besithia’s face turn a mottled purple as he croaked and rasped at his deeply confused fellows. Ardyn lifted the hat from Noct’s hair and settled it over his own ears, and smiled down on him fondly.

“I believe we’ll make a hell-raiser of you yet, your highness.”


	3. Chapter 3

Night had only just fallen on the outskirts of Lucis, and Ardyn ran blood-stained hands over the grey and black robes of his official station. He looked down at the black ichor that mingled with the dusty red streaks on his arms, and wondered for one brief moment if the protections that had been placed on him, the careful control he maintained in every waking second of his eternal life, had faltered at last. What would happen, should the daemons that lay dormant within his bloodstream emerge? Would he shift, turn into something new and unrecognizable? He watched the black blood drip from his fingers, and remembered.

The Marilith. _Regis._ Noctis. At his feet, the massive, coiled body of the daemon that had savaged the young prince was already starting to sink into the ground, bubbling and hissing. It was too kind of a death for this creature, this beast that would have taken the chosen king so soon. Ardyn wanted to pull the daemon’s corpse from the sludge in which it was dissolving, drag it back to life and slowly, _tenderly,_ rip it to pieces while its still-living tongue begged for death. He wanted to taste its pain, revel in that unique brand of fear that only daemons could exude, twisted and dark and tortured. He wanted to—

There was a sound behind him. He turned, and saw King Regis holding his son with the same pained, desperate look he’d given Ardyn not so long ago, when Aulea lay smiling on her deathbed. Ardyn stepped towards them, forcing down the delight that sang in his bones, the triumph of the Scourge that burned within. He knelt at Regis’ side.

“Is he dying?” Regis asked. “Can you sense it?”

“No. Not yet.”

Regis closed his eyes, and Ardyn wrapped his arms around the man and boy, taking no mind of the blood that stained the king’s soft hair. Then he rose, helped Regis to his feet, and directed the dazed and grief-worn king to his waiting attendants.

Noctis would not wake for some time.

Ardyn stayed away from the young prince during his days asleep. Every time he stopped at the door to the prince’s room, he could feel the Scourge surging forward, blackening his eyes and staining his teeth. Something unnatural lay in the prince’s inability to wake, something that called to the sickness Ardyn only barely held at bay. So Regis watched the boy instead, and Ardyn took to walking the halls of the Citadel, feeling lost and uncertain for the first time in many, many years.

 

\---

 

“ _Ardyn!_ ”

The high, cold voice echoed in the hall of the residential wing of the Citadel, echoing off the stone walls. Ardyn turned, and saw the young prince Noctis forcefully pushing at the wheels of his chair, gaining little traction on the soft rug that lined the floor.

“Prince Noctis,” Ardyn said, arranging his lips into something like a smile. “It’s good to see you well—“

“No it isn’t!” Noct stopped a few feet away, panting, looking up at Ardyn with all the hatred he could muster. “You don’t _care_ if I get better.”

Ardyn opened his mouth in surprise.

“Don’t have anything to say?” Noct asked. “You always do. But not when I’m sick. Not when it _hurts_ all the time. Then you’re. Then you’re gone, because, because I’m—“

“Oh, Noct.” Ardyn knelt before him. “I apologize, dear one.” He held Noctis’ gaze with his own, showing him the sincerity that didn’t always come across in his voice. “You know that I used to have the ability to heal?”

“Yeah? So?”

“Can you imagine how that feels, Noctis, to see someone you care for, dying, wounded, and you can’t do anything to help them?” He saw Noct ready himself for a sharp retort, and added, “It was wrong of me to stay away for so long, but can you truly blame me?”

Noct’s frown softened. “You’re never sorry for _anything,_ ” he said, in a disbelieving tone.

“Yes, well. Most things, I’ll grant you.” Ardyn lay a hand over Noct’s. “But healing, that’s another matter.”

“Well, I don’t care,” Noct said. “Don’t do it again.”

Ardyn smiled down at him, amused to see the hint of Aulea’s features in Noct’s furious scowl. “Wish, command,” he said, and rose. “Do you want to hear what I have planned for Niflheim? It involves a double agent, very hush-hush.”

Noct sighed. “I have to go to Tenebrae tomorrow,” he said. “To see the new Oracle.”

“Good,” said Ardyn. “I can tell you on the way.”

The prince’s resulting smile was bright enough to shame the sun.

 

\---

 

The young Oracle was a _delight._ Ardyn had learned, in his long years of experience, that what most called an “old soul” was often just a person who knew how to listen. Lunafreya Nox Fleuret listened to everyone, watched everyone, and used that brilliant mind of hers to piece together her own opinions. One day, she would make an awe-inspiring woman. It was a shame that her older brother was due to inherit the throne—the poor boy would have to depend on her for everything, no doubt.

Luna and Noctis became fast friends in the course of fifteen minutes, much to the relief of King Regis. Ardyn watched him curiously, wondering if the king were already thinking of setting up a match for young Noctis. Ardyn was still trying to wrap his mind around the modern era’s tendency of marrying for love, but the royal family did throw up a traditionalist now and then. Regis had never spoken of his opinions regarding Noct’s future, however. It would be odd for him to be thinking of it now.

Luna had another surprise waiting just for Ardyn, some time into the second week of their stay. Ardyn arrived in a small sitting room to find the Oracle curled up by the window, a dark-haired woman at her side. The woman’s chin lifted at Ardyn’s approach, and familiar lips curved in a smile he hadn’t seen in almost two thousand years.

“Shiva,” he said, in a strangled voice. The woman—the goddess—stood, and extended her arms to his. Ardyn sank into her hold and kissed her cheek, trembling with the weight of their last meeting. The joy in his heart struggled against a bright rage that rolled through his skin.

“Her name’s Gentiana now,” Luna said.

“Gods,” said Ardyn. “You’re even wearing the same face when you—How long since you regained a physical form? I thought you’d left us forever.”

Gentiana—Shiva—laughed, and carded her fingers through Ardyn’s hair. “Let us speak for a moment, my young king.”

Ardyn _ached_ at the old endearment, and sank obediently into a chair. His gaze never left her, even when Luna spoke, and it took him a moment to register what the Oracle was trying to say.

“I was thinking,” Luna said, when he asked her to repeat herself one more time, “that there may be a way to make it easier. Your burden, I mean. Until it’s time.”

Ardyn smiled indulgently. “If there were,” he said, “I’d know.”

“Still, I’d like to try. Does it hurt you, still?”

Ardyn looked at the young woman, trying to gauge whether she was ready for this. But then, she would not have found Gentiana if she weren’t. “Always,” he said, honestly. “If I let my guard down, even for a moment…”

“That’s what Gentiana said. May I?” Luna rose, holding out her hands. Ardyn let her take his right arm, and watched as gold light began to spill from her fingers. The Oracle pursed her lips, and he felt her magic probing the darkness in his blood, agitating it, stirring the maelstrom of fury to a sharp and sudden wakefulness.

And then Ardyn was being held to his chair by firm hands, and Luna was standing back against the wall, face drawn and pale. Ardyn felt his body convulsing under Gentiana’s touch, forced down the guttural snarl that tried to drag its way up his throat, and tasted bile and metal in the back of his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Luna said, in a small voice. “You lost control.”

Ardyn laughed, bitter and half-wild, and gripped Gentiana’s arm with clawing fingers.

“What’s going on in here?” Noct’s voice, soft and slurred with sleep, called from behind them. “Luna? Ardyn?”

Despite himself, Ardyn turned to the boy. Noct’s face fell in confusion and fear, and Ardyn touched the skin under his eye with a free hand. It came back grey with the ichor of daemonic blood, and he knew. All those years of being so careful not to show his true face to the royal family were undone in an instant.

He turned aside.

“Noctis,” Luna said. “I think we need to have a talk.”

“What’s _happened_ to him?” Noct asked. He sounded like he was about to cry. “Ardyn, are you—Are you hurt? I don’t understand.”

“Let me help you,” Luna said. She passed out of Ardyn’s vision, and he could hear the rustle of her dress as she walked to the door. “He’ll be better when we’re done.”

Ardyn closed his eyes, focusing on Gentiana’s presence at his back, until Luna wheeled Noct into the hall and closed the door behind her.

“Same little Ardyn,” Gentiana said, and pressed cold lips to the top of his head. “You always did care too much.”


	4. Chapter 4

It was only a few years after Noctis’ recovery in Tenebrae when King Regis stormed into the rooms that Ardyn had claimed for himself in the Citadel, looking like a man possessed.

“Tell me this isn’t true,” Regis said. He held a dossier in his free hand, and leaned heavily on his cane with the other. Ardyn frowned. When had Regis required a cane just to walk down the hall? He pushed that thought from his mind and rolled out of bed, reaching out a hand for the dossier.

“Give me a moment,” he said, and flipped it open. “Oh! Yes. This is all correct.” He handed the dossier back to Regis, and raised his eyebrows at the look of true fury in the king’s eyes. “What?”

“You involved my _son_ in an investigation into the Kingsglaive,” Regis said, in a slow, careful tone. “You ran that investigation without my knowledge, and now you say that my captain—my _captain,_ Ardyn—is a spy from Niflheim?”

“Yes,” Ardyn said, reasonably. Honestly, sometimes he could _not_ understand Regis’ temper. Aulea was much better at explaining this sort of thing to him. “All Noctis did was befriend one or two of the glaives. He _offered,_ Regis. You should be proud that he’s making an effort—“

“If they are corrupt, this could have put him at risk,” Regis said.

“Hardly.” Ardyn turned a level gaze to the king. “I would have killed them myself.”

Regis threw the dossier onto Ardyn’s ornate coffee table and sighed heavily. “By the Six, Ardyn, sometimes you—“

“Are incredibly helpful?” Ardyn offered. “Root out a coup before it happens? Are devilishly attractive in my concern for your continued well-being? Please, do go on, you know how I like it when you flatter me.”

Regis shakily lowered himself to a chair and ran a hand over his face. “I’ll bring Drautos before the Council,” he said, after a moment. “But don’t involve my son in this again.”

“I can make no promises,” Ardyn said. He looked down at Regis, noting the tremor in his bad leg, the white hairs already cropping up above the grey. “Have you considered, my dear, when you might want to pass on your duties—“

“No.” Regis’ voice brooked no argument. “Noctis isn’t ready. He needs to form the covenants, come to terms with… with what must be done.”

“He never will, if you don’t tell him.”

When Regis looked up at him this time, there was warmth in his eyes, a hint of the humor that had drawn Ardyn to him in the first place, so many years ago.

“And you have?”

Ardyn knew a lost cause when he heard one. He sat down in the opposite chair, opened the dossier once more, and rang for tea.

 

\---

 

“So what’s it like?” Noct asked one morning. “The Starscourge?”

He’d met Ardyn on the way back from sparring practice with Gladio, trailing at Ignis’ heels with the languorous ease of a man with all the time in the world. At his question, Ignis whirled around, shooting the prince a disapproving glare, but Noct pointedly ignored him. Ardyn stuck his hands in his coat pockets and silently prayed for patience.

“You should ask your friend Luna, Noct. She’s the expert.”

“Bullshit.” Noct ignored another hiss from Ignis. “You’re the one carrying it, right? What’s it like?”

Ardyn thought about it. “Do you remember how it felt when you were cut open by the Marilith?”

“You’re as bad as each other,” Ignis mumbled. Ardyn grinned.

“Yeah, I guess,” Noct said, looking uncomfortable.

“Imagine that, but in your _blood,_ every waking moment of your life.”

Noct was silent for a minute, gazing up at the molding that ran along the ceiling. After a while, Ardyn assumed that was it for the prince’s bout of morbid curiosity, but then he spoke, sounding dreamy and far-off.

“I get it, then,” he said.

“Get what, Noct?”

Noctis turned his vague look to Ardyn, and shook his head. “Come on, Iggy,” he said, looking to his advisor. “I promised I’d meet Prom at the arcade.” He darted forward, wrapping a lanky arm around his friend, and dragged him off down the hall.

There was a subtle change in Noctis after that. It took a while to notice, like the unfolding of a flower to the sun. The normally recalcitrant prince started training longer with his shield. His room, according to the talkative maids who swept through Ardyn’s apartments, was starting to fill with borrowed books and piles of reports that had long gone unopened before. He could often be found wandering close to the room where the crystal was held, fingers twisting in the grooves that had been carved into the marble of the door. Regis was the one who noted that he was writing to Luna with more frequency, starting to flesh out what had once been tentative plans for forging the covenants.

As such, Ardyn was unsurprised to find Noct at his door one evening not long after he turned nineteen, looking awkward and anxious in his ratty nightclothes. The young man sat on the edge of one of Ardyn’s chairs and asked the same question so many of his ancestors had voiced.

“What can you tell me about the Astrals?”

Normally, Ardyn was loath to go into detail. The Astrals were not fond of being too well known—It was poor PR, Ardyn assumed, for people to know that they were gods in name only, and prone to their own weaknesses of character. But Noctis… He was to be the last of the line. Surely, for him at least, an exception could be made.

And so Noct became a regular presence in Ardyn’s rooms in the evenings. The young man would drape himself over priceless antiques and fiddle with ancient artifacts, pushing Ardyn to reveal more and more about the lives of the Astrals. Ardyn wasn’t sure when the subject of their nightly talks started to change, but after a while, he found himself telling Noct stories about his descendants, about what the world had looked like before, about his lovers and enemies, the pain that clawed at him when the night wore on.

One night, a few months after Noct’s twentieth, Noct appeared at the door in an old shirt and black jeans. He didn’t step over the threshold when Ardyn called him in, but hovered there, looking pale and withdrawn.

“I want to show you something,” he said. “Come on.”

“I’m not one of your subjects that you can simply order about, you know,” Ardyn said, with deep amusement.

“You’re following me anyway, aren’t you?” Noct’s smirk was too knowing. Ardyn had half a mind to turn back and leave him in the hall, but he had to admit to some level of curiosity. He walked in step with the prince down the dark, abandoned corridors, noting the way they followed the upward slope around the main entrance of the Citadel.

Noct led him into one of the side balconies overlooking the throne room, just above the throne itself. Ardyn’s laugh echoed in the vast, empty hall—Noct had set up a display of small iced cakes on the chair belonging to the Head of the Treasury.

“Don’t worry,” Noct said. “Ignis made them. We had to look up the recipe in the library archives, actually. Try one.”

Ardyn shook his head. “You know that I barely eat these days, Noctis—“

“Don’t be a buzzkill, Ardyn.” Noct picked one up in his fingers and held it out. Ardyn took it from him with a sigh.

“The things I do for you, my sweet,” he said, unthinking, and froze. Noct didn’t seem to have noticed. His mocking scowl was fixed on his face, waiting for Ardyn to concede to his demands. Slowly, Ardyn bit into the cake.

“Oh, no,” he said, after a moment. “You didn’t.”

“You said you hated how dry everything is these days,” Noct said, all innocence. “So I found a recipe that’s almost as old as you are.”

“If only I had the power to send overconfident princes into exile,” Ardyn said. “You, my dear, have just reminded me of the worst time in your nation’s history. No one bathed. No one. Can you imagine? Nearly one thousand years with the miracle of indoor plumbing, and suddenly, _Oh no, Sir Ardyn, everyone knows that water carries the Scourge!_ I despaired, Noctis.”

Noct snorted. “You survived, obviously.” He pulled up one of the chairs and grabbed a cake. “Come on, old man. Sit down and tell me how much you hated them. It’ll do you good.”

Ardyn stared at him, thrown off by Aulea’s words slipping so casually from her son’s lips. “You spoil me,” he said, and pulled up another chair. “I give you five minutes before I ruin your appetite forever.”

“Ten,” said Noctis. “Go on. Try me.”

Noct lasted seven. By then, the Treasurer’s chair was a mess, and the both of them were struggling not to alert any passing guards to their presence with barely restrained gasps of laughter. They were pressed up against one of the benches overlooking the throne, Ardyn running his hands over the prince’s back as Noct doubled over, struggling to breathe.

“You’re going to _kill_ me,” Noct said, pressing his forehead to Ardyn’s shoulder. Ardyn shrugged.

“Eventually.”

Noct fell silent. He breathed into Ardyn’s neck for a moment, and Ardyn held him there, content with the warmth of him. Then the prince’s hands tugged at the scarf that Ardyn kept draped around his shoulders, pulling it loose. When he began unbuttoning the front of his vest, Ardyn lay a hand over his, stilling him.

“I know,” Noct said. Ardyn searched the young man’s eyes, and saw no confusion there, no uncertainty. His face was familiar in the way Gentiana had been familiar, the way it felt when he stepped into the old tombs and saw the carved faces of his old friends, old lovers. There was something of Regis’ desperation there, Aulea’s reckless anger, and a determination that was all his own.

_“You know what this will do to you,” his brother had told him when Ardyn was young, and the Scourge was wiping out the population of Lucis in droves. He helped Ardyn pin his robes about his neck, turning him towards the mirror in what was once meant to be his royal apartments._

_“I know,” Ardyn had said. He stared into the mirror, hardly surprised to find that he no longer recognized the man he’d become. “I know.”_

Noctis gazed up at him with the same expression in his bright blue eyes, and when he pushed the wide jacket from Ardyn’s shoulders, the immortal king did not stop him.

“I’ve known for years,” Noct said. He leaned in, lips an inch from Ardyn’s, and tilted his head, pressing his warm mouth to the line of Ardyn’s jaw. “You’ve been telling me since I was a kid. Little things. The way you talked. The way you didn’t. Dad, too.” He resumed unbuttoning Ardyn’s vest, and his breath tickled the curve of his neck.

“Neither of you talked about the future like I was going to be a part of it,” he said, and his voice was matter-of-fact. Whatever tears he had for this had already been shed. Ardyn wished the young man _would_ cry, would hate him for it, but the prince only pressed his hands to Ardyn’s bare chest and ran them down to the weight of his belt.

“I’m not a part of that future, either,” Ardyn said. Noct drew back, and held his gaze with eyes that were much too old.

“I know that, too,” he said. “I asked Luna.”

He pulled off his shirt, and Ardyn unconsciously raised his hands to the prince’s waist. He held him by the hips and pulled him close, and Noct straddled his lap, settling down to press his hard length against Ardyn’s.

“One day,” Noct said, “I'll be the death of you.”

“ _Yes,_ ” said Ardyn. Noct ground down with his hips, and pleasure pooled in Ardyn’s belly, rippling over his skin like the crackle of magical fire. “Perhaps we shouldn’t, Noctis.”

“Shouldn’t what?” Noct asked. “Destroy the Starscourge?” He lowered his mouth to Ardyn’s neck and bit down, grinding into him again. “Save Eos?”

“You know what I mean, Noct.”

Noct paused, and his low, steady voice broke. “I know I’m… I know your reputation. You’ve taken lovers before. It’s in all the books.”

“This is the problem with a literate population,” Ardyn said. “They read things they truly shouldn’t.”

“I know you love my dad,” said Noct. “Or you did. I’m not gonna say that isn’t weird as hell.”

“I’ve loved many people, Noctis.” Ardyn said. “I loved your four-times great grandfather. I loved a traveling musician who came to town just after you were born. I loved—“

“Me,” Noct said, and kissed him properly, dragging at his lower lip with his teeth as he pulled away.

They stared at each other for a long, long moment.

“Yes,” Ardyn said, at last. “I might. One day.”

“Let’s find out, then,” said Noct, and smiled grimly as Ardyn lowered him gently to the floor.


	5. Chapter 5

Noctis formed his first covenant with an Astral at twenty-one.

Both he and Luna agreed that it had been a long time coming, but King Regis was resolute in his belief that Noctis needed to space the covenants out, if only to give Luna enough of a break to recover. Noct and Ardyn knew the truth—Regis was trying to draw out the day in which Noctis would fulfill his destiny, holding it off as long as possible. Which, if Ardyn’s estimation of the ring’s effect on Regis was correct, would not be effective in any case. If Regis did not abdicate soon, all of his efforts would be a waste.

Not, of course, that Regis was inclined to listen to Ardyn’s advice. Particularly not now, when despite Ardyn’s care, it was clear that he had taken yet another member of the royal family as a lover.

“You and I began _our_ liaison when you were his age,” Ardyn told Regis, as they lay sprawled in the king’s quarters one evening. Regis was still coming down from Ardyn’s generous ministrations, and looked at him with cheeks flushed by more than pleasure.

“He’s my son, Ardyn,” he said. “I fear that if you are to pursue this… What we have…”

“Remains,” Ardyn said, and kissed him roughly, just as Regis liked it, pressing him back against the plush pillows. “But not like this. I know, dear one.”

“It may make it harder for the both of you,” Regis said. “If he feels as though he loves you, how will he—“

“We’ve discussed it,” Ardyn said. Often, in fact. Noct worried the subject like a loose tooth, examining it, trying to work around it, bringing it up at the most inopportune times. For instance, the other day, the prince had arranged exactly how one could kill an immortal man with the least amount of physical pain possible while Ardyn fucked him face-first into the thick carpets of the Citadel’s library.

Ardyn wondered, then, perhaps far too late, if he had been a bad influence on the young man.

As it was, he did not return to Regis’ chambers after their talk. He watched Noctis train with his friends, prepare for the oncoming covenant with Ramuh, and attend meetings with council officials who were less than inclined to believe that a day may come when they would have to survive without the power of the crystal—or the sun.

One such meeting—wherein King Regis tried to explain that stores of seeds would need to be prepared to last at least fifteen years without sunlight—went on so long that both Regis and his son began to share the same look of a man on the edge of a furious temper. Ardyn knew what he’d done for Regis at times like this, but he wasn’t certain that the king would approve in this case. Instead, he turned to the prince, who was trying to reason with the new head of State that energy outputs would need to be decreased in favor of storing electricity for daemon-warding outposts. This, he knew, was going to go nowhere.

Ardyn snapped his fingers.

The members of the Council sat in perfect, frozen stillness, not a breath disturbing the cool air of the meeting room. Noct stood, his chair jolting back with a screech, and braced himself on the table. In his seat behind King Regis, Ardyn smiled and waved his fingers in a mocking salute.

“What did you—how did you—“ Noct’s voice came out muffled and thin. “The hell is this, Ardyn?”

“A reprieve,” Ardyn said. “Tomorrow, you should invite Councilwoman Elena for coffee. She has contacts in Lestallum, and she’s a romantic. Not that way, sweet,” he added, when Noct made a face. “High romance. Old legends, ridiculous myths. I may put in an appearance.”

Noct’s lips twitched. “The coffee place next to the camera store, you think?”

“It’s passable.” Ardyn stood, and unbuttoned the collar of his outer robes. “Come, Noctis. Nothing will be decided today.”

Noct shook his head, but he rounded the table anyways, letting Ardyn slip an arm around his waist. “They might notice if we disappear on them, you know.”

Ardyn smiled at the shiver of anticipation that ran through the young man, and pulled him close. “Let your father sort them out,” he said, and guided the prince out the door of the meeting room. “I have plans for you.”

“Hedonist.”

“Did I ever profess to be otherwise?” Ardyn saw the gleam in Noctis’ bright eyes and sighed inwardly. Oh, he _did_ like this one. He snapped his fingers again just as they left, and time resumed its steady crawl towards the promised day.

 

Ardyn did not accompany Noctis to the covenant with Ramuh. Luna would be there, and after that first failed attempt to hold the daemons in Ardyn’s flesh with her magic, Ardyn found that he could not go near the young woman without being overcome by a strong, insatiable desire to rip out her small, pale throat with his _bare hands._ He settled for keeping a safe distance—three miles, at least—and would meet with the prince and his Crownsguard afterwards, when Noct appeared swathed in power and humming with magic. Ardyn couldn’t control himself around Noctis then, either, though for a much different reason.

“It was amazing,” Noct said, when he finally removed his lips from Ardyn’s skin long enough to breathe. His eyes still shone a faint violet in the faded streetlights of the Alstor Slough’s outpost, and his skin seemed to glow against the dark leather of Ardyn’s car. He had spent himself once already, but as Ardyn rolled his hips in a slow rhythm, brushing against Noctis’ prostate with every thrust, the prince’s own length was starting to harden again.

“Did it feel like that for you?” Noct asked.

“I can hardly remember, dear heart,” Ardyn said. Noct let out a moan as Ardyn increased the pace, and opened his mouth obediently to Ardyn’s fingers, closing around them. “I believe I prefer this memory, in any case.” Noct couldn’t respond, only gazed up with that singular intensity he reserved for Ardyn alone, and Ardyn pushed his fingers just shy of where they would choke him before slipping them out again. He wrapped his now slick hand around Noct, and eased him back to full and aching hardness.

“Liar,” Noct gasped, and Ardyn’s teeth flashed in a wicked smile. “Tell me. What was it like when Ramuh’s fire took you?”

Ardyn laughed, leaned down to lick the shell of the prince’s ear, and told him.

 

The covenant with the Leviathan was just short of a disaster, as everyone expected. Luna and Noctis did their best, bless them, and their friends certainly chipped in to protect the populace of Altissia, but Ardyn could see that the Astral—who was never at her best even when she wasn’t being woken from a four-hundred-year-long beauty sleep—was hardly going to listen to reason. Ardyn decided that he’d have to break his own rule and approach her, and the Oracle, himself.

“Darling!” he cried, in the language of the old gods. “You look as terrifying today as you did when I formed the covenant with you, you lucky girl.”

The goddess whipped her head round to face him, nearly knocking Noctis from the spines at the ridge of her neck.

“The fallen king,” she hissed. Ardyn bowed.

“Your majesty,” Lunafreya said, clinging to a pillar as waves threatened to sweep her into the sea. “You don’t have to—“

“Of course I do, my dear,” Ardyn said. He barely—barely—resisted the call of the daemons in his blood to push the poor girl into the heaving waters himself, and turned back to the Leviathan. “I thought you wanted to defeat the Scourge, oh moon of my heart.”

The Astral screeched a laugh. “This whelp is far weaker than you were, little king.”

“I’ll give you that,” Ardyn said. “But he has hidden depths.”

“Let him prove it,” the Leviathan cried. Ardyn adjusted his fingerless gloves, tugging at them idly.

“I believe he has,” he said, and turned a thin smile to the Astral, his eyes dark with malice. The Leviathan twisted, realizing too late that while Ardyn served as a distraction, Noctis had slung himself round to the Astral’s soft underbelly. The prince thrust his sword into the exposed skin of the goddess’ neck, and let his own weight drag him down, gutting her in one ragged stroke. The Leviathan cried out in rage one last time, before launching herself out of the water entirely and collapsing in a swirl of fire and magic. As the covenant was forged, she left Noctis suspended in the air, where he dropped like a stone into the sea.

Ardyn cursed fluently, kicked off his shoes, handed his jacket to the bewildered Oracle, and jumped in after him.

 

\---

 

Regis passed on in his sleep shortly before Noctis turned twenty-five.

Ardyn felt it take. He woke abruptly, only half-covered by blankets that Noctis had chosen to steal for himself, and stared into the dark canopy overhead. It happened like this, sometimes. The old kings or queens would wait too long, loath to burden their heirs with the curse of the ring of the Lucii, and they would pass quietly, painlessly, into the heart of the crystal. While Ardyn had spent the better part of the last century weakening the military might of Lucis’ enemies, the wall protecting the city of Insomnia and the outlying territories would need to be upheld.

Ardyn climbed out of bed, careful not to wake the soon-to-be king at his side, and slipped on a black over-robe.

The hall outside was empty. No one would have noticed the stillness of the wall, yet, nor suspect the quiet of the Citadel. Ardyn breathed on the lock to King Regis’ chambers and entered.

“Oh, my dear,” he said, into the empty room. Regis had died in his chair by the window, his hands stretched over the pages of a leather-bound book. His limbs were still pliant, and his skin was only just beginning to cool when Ardyn pulled the crown loose from its place over his ear. The immortal king set the crown down on the end-table, and gently lifted Regis in his arms.

There were protocols that had to be followed. The king’s shield would need to be contacted, Noctis woken, his advisor called to a late night briefing that had been prepared years in advance. The ring would need to be passed on before the morning, and the press would likely be banging on the door before anyone would think to call on them. But there were other rituals that needed to be respected, other protocols too ancient for even the priests and priestesses to remember.

Ardyn laid Regis onto his bed and arranged him in the style of the old kings of Lucis—as he had done for every king and queen before him, even Aulea. Ardyn sat at his dear friend’s side and watched the warmth leave him, felt the air of the room grow cold as the night wore on.

“Regis,” he said. “If only you had been a common man.”

When the sun rose, Ardyn pulled the black ring from Regis’ stiff fingers and drew the curtains of the bed, letting the light fall on the king’s pallid skin. Then he turned from him, and walked the short distance to his own rooms, where the new king of Lucis lay dreaming.

 

Noctis was crowned three weeks later.

The streets of Insomnia were still littered with crushed white petals, still afloat with white lanterns, banners, and flags—which had made the city look like a frothing sea for days. Now, black ribbons and banners led up to the Citadel, bells rang in the shrines and from lines strung across houses in the lower districts, and the new king Noctis Lucis Caelum CXIV extricated himself from his friends and advisors to retire for the evening.

His expression, when he stepped into his new royal apartments, was wooden and unreadable. It had been for weeks, ever since he slipped on the ring of the Lucii only hours after his father’s death, and his friends were beginning to worry that something irrevocable had changed in him. They feared that they would never again see the soft humor of his eyes, his violet flash of anger, his irreverent smirk.

Noctis locked his door with a sigh, and set to removing his shoes.

“You did well today, my dear,” Ardyn said, from his seat by the fireplace. He had divested himself of his robes of office, and was wearing unassuming evening-wear of light cotton. When he looked up at Noct, standing barefoot with his back to the door, he narrowed his eyes and stood.

Grief could take many forms. This was more than the loss of a father—Ardyn had seen that too many times before. This was something else, something that sank its teeth so deep into Noctis’ mind that he could only shut it out in return. Ardyn came to him, and held the young king’s head in both hands.

“What do you need, Noctis?” he asked. Noct let out a shuddering breath.

“Time,” he said. For a moment, his mask slipped, and Ardyn saw pain there, deep and sharp as his own. “I can feel it, Ardyn. I’m ready for the crystal. Ready to—“

“I feel it, too,” Ardyn said. He’d felt it for some time. All Noct had needed was the ring, to stand before the judgment of his ancestors and be deemed worthy of bearing the burden of his fate. “Is your kingdom ready, though?”

“No.” Noct said. “Not yet.”

“Then you have time,” said Ardyn. “We have time.”

“Please,” Noct’s voice cracked, and he pulled Ardyn in by the collar of his shirt. He tilted his head back, lips barely passing over Ardyn’s, and closed his eyes tight. His body trembled with the effort of keeping his composure, of staying still and strong and unmoved for so long. Ardyn ran warm hands up the young king’s arms, trailed his fingers in his dark hair.

“Please,” Noct said, again. “Ardyn.”

Ardyn knew what he wanted. He kissed him, soft and slow, and deftly undid the chain that held up Noct’s cloak. The cloth slithered to the floor, and Noct sank into Ardyn’s touch, opening his mouth to him. Ardyn drew a moan from Noct’s throat as he unbuttoned the well-tailored jacket of the king, pulling it back behind his arms to join to cloak on the carpet. When he pulled away, Noct’s face was flushed, his lips swollen and pink, eyes bright with unshed tears.

Ardyn helped the young man out of his shirt. Then he knelt, and Noct let out a soft cry of anguish at the sight—But Ardyn gentled him with a hand on his side. He pulled down Noctis’ pants and briefs for him, and Noct stepped out.

“One last thing,” Ardyn said. He stood, gazing down at the naked king before him, and lifted the silver crown from behind Noct’s right ear. It fell with a clatter, and Noct sighed at last.

Then he moved past Ardyn, stepped onto the bed, and sank down with his back to the immortal king. The raised scars at the base of his spine were shadowy in the unlit grey of evening, and the muscles of his shoulders and arms seemed wider, no longer constricted by tight-woven cloth and silk cloaks. Ardyn came to him and tugged at the curtains around the bed, enclosing them in the dark.

Neither of them spoke for a long while. At last, as Noctis lay back against the headboard and Ardyn lowered himself down the man’s length, the newly crowned king of Lucis dropped his hands from his lover’s shoulders and breathed out his name.

“Yes,” Ardyn said, and trailed warm kisses down the younger man’s neck. “Yes, I know.”

“You don’t,” Noct said. Ardyn pulled back. He had struck up a slow, torturous rhythm, and he could feel Noct struggling to keep from bucking his hips up to meet him. “You don’t know, Ardyn. For once. I want—“

Ardyn rose to kiss Noct’s forehead, and came down hard, making the man before him cry out in wordless pleasure. He pulled at his hips, encouraging Noct to move. Noct’s breath came out stuttered, hitching, and Ardyn could see a flash of violet in the dark, the glimmer of magic in his eyes.

“Not just you,” Noct said. His hands clutched at the sides of Ardyn’s neck, tight enough to bite into his skin. “All those people, over the years. Every one of them. I want none of them to be like this.”

“Two thousand years… Can teach you much about the impermanence of love,” Ardyn said. “It’s never a one-time thing—“

“This is,” Noct said. “Tell me it isn’t, Ardyn. Tell me. Tell me I’m just another _distraction,_ another way to. To pass the time. Another _king_ who needs you.”

“No,” Ardyn said, coming undone with every spike of pleasure that ran through him. He felt fingers close around his own flushed erection, sliding up and rolling over the head, drawing him to the edge. “You aren’t a distraction, Noctis. None of you were ever. Ever a distraction.”

“But we’re more than this,” Noct said. “You and me.”

“Yes,” Ardyn said, sinking down to the hilt, feeling Noct’s body shudder as the young man spent himself inside him. “Yes,” he said, as he was pulled to his own release. “Yes,” he cried, into Noctis’ warm and desperate mouth. When the tears he’d expected all night finally came, they trailed down his own cheeks, and Noctis kissed the salt of them from his skin.

“It’s never been like this,” Noctis whispered, and bit down just below Ardyn’s ear.

“It hasn’t,” Ardyn agreed. “And it never will again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blahhhhhhhhhh I'm so bad at writing sex scenes ok  
> Snuggling? Aw yeah. Making out? I know not to have tongues battle for dominance, at least. Sex? uhhhhhhh  
> sorry folks


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning, Noctis was gone.

Ardyn should have known. He had thousands of years to hone his observational skills, to learn every tic and tell of a human countenance, but when faced with the touch of Noctis’ skin on his, the bitter ecstasy in his voice when he cried out in his arms, the feverish desperation of his lips, Ardyn was lost. Lost to the taste of him, the warmth, the fragility and impermanence of the life that lit the new king’s eyes in the dark of their midnight tryst.

He felt it in his bones the moment Noctis touched his hand to the Crystal. He tugged at the fabric of time, warped and raced down the spiraling halls, scrambled to reach the doors of the chamber, but it was too late, far too late. Noct had been consumed before Ardyn had the time to say goodbye.

Outside, beyond the collapsing barrier that protected Insomnia from its enemies, darkness fell.

 

\---

 

In the years that followed the snuffing of the sun, the ruling council of Insomnia slowly moved out of the Citadel.

Rumor had it that the palace was haunted. Pages would run past rooms that had been empty a moment before, only to find them full of strange people in outdated clothes, talking and laughing in accents no one could understand. Those who ventured too close to the throne room reported seeing old kings and queens emerging from their portraits. One maid, while turning in her resignation in a fit of tears, swore up and down that she’d seen Queen Aulea walking arm in arm with the late King Regis.

When approached for counsel, the immortal king Ardyn Lucis Caelum said nothing.

Soon, there were only three people who dared to venture into the Citadel. Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto could be found unlocking the side door every few weeks or so, and would be seen walking back out three or four hours later, looking shaken and pale. When questioned, they simply said they were keeping an eye on the Crystal. They did not elaborate further, and locals started to avoid the streets that led to the palace, choosing instead to frequent side-ways and alleys.

Ignis Scientia sighed, locking the side door after him as he entered the Citadel. It was true that the three friends did frequent the Crystal when they could, watching for any sign of Noctis’ return, but there was another reason for their visits. The king’s advisor walked along the dark hallways leading towards the throne room, and pushed open the door to a swirl of color.

Men and women in bright, patchwork gowns and suits twirled and stamped on the stone floor of the throne room, eyes bright behind fanciful masks shaped like wolves and behemoths. Ignis strode through them, and didn’t even blink when a young woman in sky blue spun right into him and away, passing through his skin like air. Ignis straightened his glasses and made his way to the dais before the throne, where a familiar figure sat, watching the illusions dancing below.

Ardyn glanced up at Ignis with a low-lidded, heavy gaze. “Paying your respects, young steward?” he asked.

“If that’s what you’d like,” Ignis said. He sat next to the man, propping his hands on his knees. “What is it this time?”

“Thirty years ago, give or take,” Ardyn said. A woman in black burst from the crowd, laughing loudly. Her crooked nose—twice broken at least, from Ignis’ view—had a familiar tilt at the tip, and her inky black hair was curled to frame her face. She stretched out her hands, and a young man who looked remarkably like King Regis grabbed them, swinging her back into the fray.

“Always so young when they go,” Ardyn said, in a vague, dreamy sort of voice. His gaze followed the couple in black, darting through the crowd with none of the rhythm and grace of the other party-goers. “I wonder if I should have let the daemons take me. No need to bother with sentimentality.”

“Noctis will return soon,” Ignis said awkwardly, well aware that Ardyn was barely registering his presence.

“And then he will be gone,” said Ardyn. “I’m so _tired,_ Aulea. I’m so…” The illusion burst like the dousing of a fire, and Ardyn stood. “You should go,” he said, shortly. “Go back to the living, young steward. I will wait for the King alone.”

“I’ll come back,” Ignis said, as Ardyn climbed the steps to the throne. “You know I will, Your Majesty.”

Ardyn didn’t respond, and Ignis finally turned, heading back through the empty halls of the Citadel.

 

Luna arrived at the head of a group of hunters a few years later.

Tenebrae had allied with what was left of Niflheim and Accordo to protect its borders from daemons, but the Oracle found that her duty remained with the King, and made the long, dangerous trek to Insomnia. When she arrived, she was warmly greeted by Noctis’ friends, given a spacious apartment by the ruling council, and ingratiated herself in the populace with little effort. It took her several months to build up the courage to approach the Citadel, but when she did, she sensed Ardyn’s presence immediately.

“Your Majesty,” she said, standing at the doorway to the throne room. Ardyn sat on the arm of the throne, one leg draped over the edge, the other resting on the seat. He looked down at her calmly, without the slightest hint of the fury that nearly overtook him when last they met.

“Luna, my dear,” he said, in a fond tone. “How good to see you well.”

“The pleasure is mine, Your Majesty,” Luna said. “May I stay with you? For a time?”

“So long as you don’t come any closer, of _course._ ” Ardyn’s smile was bright, and Luna stiffly sat on the cold floor. “What brings you here?”

“Noctis,” Luna said, at last. “He wouldn’t want you to be alone.”

Ardyn did not respond, but the Oracle knew that he didn’t have to.

The next time she visited, Luna found a set of chairs and cushions had been set up by the door, with an electric kettle and an array of teas. Neither of them mentioned it, but Luna made sure to come by at least once a week from then on, and the Citadel soon echoed with her soft voice and Ardyn’s laughter, the only sign of life in a palace of ghosts.


	7. Chapter 7

When Noctis awoke, he knew that Ardyn had not come to him.

There were three men on the beach at Angelgard, dressed to the nines in Crownsguard formalwear, when Noct staggered down the rocky slope leading from the tomb in which his body had manifested. They were familiar, but changed. Gladio, Prompto, Ignis, shining with a steady light in the new vision the crystal had given him, their faces paler and more weathered than Noct remembered. He fell into their arms at the beach, and they guided him to where his father’s old boat was anchored.

“Ardyn told us you’d be here,” Gladio said. “He said you’d be starving. Ignis has something waiting for you on the boat.”

“Kind of him,” Noct said, through the humming of the crystal’s magic in his skin. He sat on one of the benches of the boat and looked out at the black water. “There’s no light at the Quay.”

“Had to conserve energy,” Prompto told him. “They evacuated the Quay five years ago.”

Noct looked up sharply at that, and Ignis caught his meaning. “It’s only been ten years, Noct. We were prepared for more.”

The food did help, even if Ardyn was wrong about Noct needing to eat. He didn’t feel hungry at all, and eating didn’t change him. He wondered if the crystal had done something to Noct, similar to what the Scourge had done to Ardyn. If he didn’t fulfill his role tonight, how long could he live?

The journey to the city was quiet. They had to fight their way through the Quay, but their car lights were strong enough to repel the daemons that prowled the sunless wilds, and Noct simply took the time to drink in the chatter of his friends, the grounding humanity of their company.

Luna met them at the Citadel. She held Noct’s hands and kissed him on the cheek, and he didn’t mention the tears that shone as she said her goodbyes. She and the others watched him ascend the steps to the Citadel itself, all in silence, sentinels of his days as a mortal man.

When Noct opened the door to the room where Ardyn waited, he stepped into the illusion of a grassy overlook at the top of a mountain. Mist rose from the trees like smoke, blanketing the soft, dark slopes in a haze, and he could hear birds calling and rustling about him as his boots shushed through the grass at his feet. He bent down and brushed his fingers over the blades, and was surprised to find that he could feel their prickling touch on his skin.

He took a breath. Cold water, pine, the scent of dry earth. It was all so _real._ The breeze that swept over him from the neighboring foothills made goosebumps ripple on his arms, and he could hear the rush of the grass bending before it. But his boots clacked on the earth as though over stone, and when he spoke, his voice came back to him as an echo in an empty room.

“Ardyn?” he called.

“Noctis.” A comforting heat poured through him at that voice—at _his_ voice. Noct turned, and Ardyn was there, dressed simply in black, smiling down on him as though he were as much of an illusion as the mountain on which they stood.

“Gods, I missed you,” Noct said, but it wasn’t enough to explain the aching misery of being trapped in the crystal, forced to relive every moment of his waking life. He lifted his hands, but didn’t touch him, suddenly as nervous and unsure as he’d been at twenty.

“Beloved,” Ardyn said, and kissed him slow, with a tenderness that Noct could barely remember. He found that for the first time since before the death of his father, he could no longer keep an iron grip on grief. He wept into Ardyn’s hold like a child. It wasn’t dignified. It wasn’t noble. His tears were ugly and gasping, and Ardyn kissed his neck and his hair as he held him through it, hands warm on his back.

“Am I such an unpleasant sight?” Ardyn asked at last, when Noct could breathe. He whipped a handkerchief out of thin air—Of course he would, Noct thought—and pressed it into the king’s hands. Noct laughed into it weakly, and looked up into Ardyn’s eyes. He saw a hint of the same loneliness there, a vast ocean to the river in which Noct saw fit to wade. He’d been so patient, was _still_ so patient, even now.

“This is beautiful,” he said, gesturing to the mountain range. “How can you do this? I can’t, and I forged the covenants, like you…”

“We can’t know everything about one another, my sweet,” Ardyn said, kissing him again. He was rougher this time, possessive, claiming him with every press of their lips, every sweep of his tongue. He left Noct breathless and yearning, and turned to look out over the horizon. “Perhaps I’ll tell you, when this is over. Once we are beyond.”

“Is there a beyond?” Noct asked. “Is there anything?”

Ardyn shrugged. “My mother said so, once.” Noct raised his eyebrows—Ardyn had never spoken of his direct family before. “I’m curious to find out.”

He said the last in such a soft tone that Noctis almost missed it. Noct ducked under his arm and stood there with him for a while, listening to the sounds of a land that did not exist.

“I’m ready,” Noct said, at last.

“So am I,” whispered Ardyn.

Noct wondered if either of them were telling the truth.

The illusion melted under Ardyn’s feet as they made their way up the stairs to the throne. They faced each other before the throne itself, and Noctis summoned his armiger. The blades of his ancestors hovered at Ardyn’s back, shining with the power of the crystal.

“Remember,” Ardyn said, lifting a hand below his breast. “Right here.”

“I know,” said Noct. Ardyn raised a hand to his neck, brushed at the long strands of his hair.

“I’ll see you soon,” Noctis said, and his blades struck home.

Ardyn fell first, dropping to his knees on the stone. Then the blades that had pierced his once immortal flesh continued on, burying themselves into Noctis one by one. He knelt before the third blow, gathered Ardyn into his lap by the seventh, clenched his fists in the cloth at his shoulders by the tenth. When it was done, the first and the last kings of Lucis lay still before the throne. Noctis’ head was bowed over Ardyn’s as though in prayer, his hands slack against his lover’s back, and his dark hair was gilded with light as the first rays of the sun shone through the wide windows of the throne room.


End file.
